Bishops Slam “Unprecedented and Extreme” Attack on Religious Freedom

As you already know, President Obama just signed an executive order banning anyone who contracts with the federal government from discriminating based on “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.”

The U.S. Bishops’ response to King Barack’s latest edict from on high was swift and decisive. And it didn’t mince words either, jumping right out of the gate with this one-liner:

“Today’s executive order is unprecedented and extreme and should be opposed.”

Pretty clear, I would say.

The bishops’ statement (issued by Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty and Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, Chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth) goes on to expose the blatant contradiction inherent in Obama’s decree – that in the guise of banning discrimination, it actually is discrimination:

“In the name of forbidding discrimination, this order implements discrimination. With the stroke of a pen, it lends the economic power of the federal government to a deeply flawed understanding of human sexuality, to which faithful Catholics and many other people of faith will not assent. As a result, the order will exclude federal contractors precisely on the basis of their religious beliefs.”

Most alarmingly, Obama’s executive order makes no exception for religious employers, a feature that even a recent bill passed by Harry Reid’s Senate had included:

“When the U.S. Senate, which is controlled by the President’s own party, passed the similar Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) last year, it included religious liberty protections as well. Indeed, all prior versions of ENDA had at least some religious liberty protections. But the executive order is an anomaly in this regard, containing no religious liberty protections. In this way, the order, which is fundamentally flawed in itself, also needlessly prefers conflict and exclusion over coexistence and cooperation.”

Well said. Obama’s executive order does not merely promote, but “prefers” conflict and exclusion. This is crucial to the program of dismantling the resistance – to draw it into open battle on the field of post-modern secular culture and hope it is destroyed bit by bit.

If you didn’t see the lie behind the Notre Dame commencement rhetoric then, hopefully you do now.

Can we really still question whether this is the ultimate aim of the culture of death and its current figurehead – to marginalize, then criminalize, and finally to eradicate the Catholic Church in America?

Despite the temptation to tell Obama “good luck with that,” the fact is that it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.

But you know what makes it easier?

Having shepherds who stare down the wolf and say, “bring it on.”

Thank God for our bishops.

The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of CatholicVote.org